Mario is an illegal alien from Mexico. He has lived in the U.S. for five years and worked various construction jobs in the South. Mario’s family stayed behind in Mexico so he struggles with loneliness and has a poor social network except for an outreach ministry at a local Catholic Church.
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CASE STUDY INSTRUCTIONS
Select a scenario below and discuss how you would proceed if working with this client.
Scenario #1
Mario is an illegal alien from Mexico. He has lived in the U.S. for five years and worked various
construction jobs in the South. Mario’s family stayed behind in Mexico so he struggles with
loneliness and has a poor social network except for an outreach ministry at a local Catholic
Church.
Mario was pulled over and charged with a DUI. He was sent to your agency for mandatory
counseling in addition to attending a drug treatment support group like Alcoholics Anonymous.
You are assigned Mario’s case.
Scenario #2
Janet just completed her fourth divorce. She is in her early 30s. Her personal life is in chaos. She
has children by three of her former husbands. Janet has struggled with addiction issues over the
years including alcohol and drugs. She came from a very difficult family where her parents were
alcoholics and often fought with each other. Janet was sexually abused by her uncle on more
than one occasion when he lived with the family during her early teen years. Janet’s problems
with drugs and alcohol began as a teenager.
Scenario #3
Roger is an obese 40-year old man and suffers from other health issues like diabetes and high
blood pressure. Roger reports that he lives alone and has very few friends. Roger is single and
would like to be married. However, he is afraid that women will reject his advances due to his
weight. To further complicate the issue, he reports struggling with homosexual thoughts and
feelings. Roger sought your help because he recently contemplated suicide.
INSTRUCTIONS
Select a scenario and explain how you would proceed in counseling this client. The following
items can serve as sections in the paper. Be sure to identify each section in the paper as a
heading.
1. Personal Information Discuss the information you want to obtain from the client in the first session. Why do
you want this information? Would one of the taxonomy models such as the one offered
by Hays or Maslow be appropriate? Be clear in identifying this information such as
Family Background or Relationship Background and explain why you would want to
know this information.
2. Personal Biases and Limitations Every counselor needs to consider personal biases and limitations carefully. If the topic is
a hot-button or you lack sufficient knowledge to be effective with the client then you
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would need to refer. Identify possible problems in working with the client. Be clear in
explaining why these issues could detract from counseling.
3. Goals What goals would you like to achieve with the client? Why do you believe that these
goals are important? What would you do if the client refused to accept a goal that you
believe would be helpful? If you were allowed only one goal, what would that goal be?
Why do you believe this would be the most beneficial goal?
4. Theoretical Approach Discuss the theoretical approach or model that you believe will be most effective for the
client. Why will this model be the best model to use?
5. Therapeutic Techniques What counseling techniques would be appropriate (e.g., genograms, journaling)? How
many sessions would you schedule? Would you encourage the client to seek other areas
of psycho-educational assistance or resources?
6. Measurement of Progress and Success How do you plan to measure success? Why is this form of measurement the best method
to use with this client?
7. Conclusion The conclusion should provide a brief summary of your closing thoughts or concerns
about the future progress of the client.
PAPER REQUIREMENTS
The body of the paper must be 3–5 pages.
The paper must include a minimum of 3 peer-reviewed or scholarly sources dated within the
past 5 years. The information borrowed from the resources should offer support for your
comments. Use the course materials and peer-reviewed journals.
Information borrowed from other resources must be cited APA style in the body of the paper in
addition to listing the source citations alphabetically on the reference page.
The assignment must include a title page and an abstract page in addition to a References page
that are current APA format compliant. Follow current APA formatting throughout the paper.
